


things we pulled from the fire (things we watched burn)

by petroltogo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame spoilers, Gen, Half-A-Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Reality Is What Tony Made It, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but not completely, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 09:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18753751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: [ENDGAME SPOILERS]Tony Stark picks up the gauntlet.(He is not God — never wanted to be God — but he comes closer than most. And—)Reality is what Tony makes it.





	things we pulled from the fire (things we watched burn)

Tony has been thinking about it since he first caught sight of Thor.

He's not sure what he expected after five years of radio silence. Certainly not the same Thor, not after everything the others had told him. Loss and mistakes and regret have a way of piling up on you, of burying you if you aren't watching out for it, Tony knows that. And Thor is- coping but not. He's not good — he's so damn far from good — but he isn't destroying what's left of Earth in his grief and that's more than Tony can say for many people they've faced in the past. And it's not Tony's job to fix Thor. There's no simple fix it for depression and Tony isn't suicidal enough to go poking around at a half-drunk demigod's unresolved issues.

But it's Tony's job to _fix_. To find solutions. To figure out answers to questions the people around him haven't even realized they want to ask yet. And so when Tony sees Thor, his team mate, his friend, he can't help but consider various scenarios, on potential causes and solutions alike. It's nothing concrete. Not the active, step-by-step planning kind that they're building their utterly mad time travel scheme on. Just an absent-minded, barely conscious, little notion. A tiny _what if_.

It gets pushed aside before it has fully formed. Because, frankly, they have to focus their attention on building a freaking _time machine_ and deciding which dates will be their best shot and really, Tony can’t believe that this is his life now.

But ideas, once formed, are rarely that easily forgotten.

The inkling is back as Thor recounts his reunion with his mother in the past — partly to distract them all from Natasha’s sacrifice, partly because Thor is almost bursting with it. The many, conflicting emotions the talk evoked — almost culminating into peace, but not quite there yet — the encounter has awakened in him that refuse to be drowned out by alcohol — and Tony’s been there.  So he listens. It feels like the most productive thing he can do, at this point.

Then their world is going up in flames and explosions, walls crumbling and falling, burying them alive, and Tony can’t even say he’s surprised because this has all been too simple. And because there was always gonna be a price tag, especially when you mess with time the way they have.

Frankly, Tony still can’t believe the universe hasn’t folded into itself and eradicated them all as soon as they started this hair-brained scheme. Damn, but he’s good.

He’s good.

Good enough to know all too soon that they’re quickly running out of options. That the amount of variables is narrowing down faster and faster and that the decisions that are made now, in this very moment, will define the past and future of the entire universe for the rest of its existence. He meets Stephen Strange's hard eyes over the chaos of the battle, takes in the gravity that looks too much like an _It was an honor_  to be mistaken as anything but a goodbye.

Tony would take the time to make a joke, if he wasn’t so busy staying alive.

If he wasn’t so busy not screaming in _painpainpainagonypain—_

“I am Iron Man,” Tony spits out from between gritted teeth. And he’s said those words many times before, too often maybe, but they’ve never been as true as they are in this moment.

This one, single, insignificant moment that lasts a lifetime to a man like Tony with a mind too fast for its own good and the creation of the universe lying at its feet. How much can you accomplish in a single moment, just long enough for the entire universe to hold its breath, with the might of _powersoulrealitytimemindspace_ in your hands and the iron will to _end this now_?

_These are are things you can fix—_

(Rhodey is running, jumping, racing, steps surer and more confident than since before his fall, and he doesn’t even notice, because he still isn’t fast _enough—_ )

(Wanda jerks as an old, jagged wound inside her is cut open again, wild and bleeding for but a fraction of a second before it heals, a soothing hum calming her mind that’s been missing for years, been lostdeadgone for years, a loss people who don’t have a twin, people whose minds and souls will always be their own, will never understand and that’s not possible—)

(Bucky flinches as seventeen words aren’t just broken but shattered, lose any hold and shadow they could have carried, and they’re not gone, if anything the memories are clearer than they’ve ever been — have lost none of their horror — but there is a security in knowing and the guilt is there still, a big part of the scrapped, bloodied ghost of a person that crawled out of a hell made by other people, and though it's still sharp, it doesn't cut the way it used to, has been softened around the edges just that bit—)

_—and these are the things you can’t._

( _Vision_.)

( _Natasha_.)

( _Tony_.)

*

Tony doesn’t open his mouth again. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t speak.

If he had—

If he had.

Maybe it would have been—

_~~I know you will~~. _

_~~I love you~~. _

_~~I love both of you~~. _

_~~3000~~. _

_~~Don’t sell all my toys~~._

_Left a couple of surprises for you. Good luck_.

But Tony doesn’t. He doesn’t need to.

They’ll be alright.

*

(Half the universe away, a pair of green eyes snap open, endless possibilities dancing in bright sparks between long, pale fingers.)

**Author's Note:**

> Tony didn't. He didn't change the world. Didn't fix it. Didn't even improve it. And that says more about his character, his strength of will, than anything I'll ever be able to put in words. To me, the fact that Tony didn't change things, that he didn't make the world better, remade the world into what he thinks it should be, that's what makes him a hero.
> 
> Tony Stark didn't play at being God. He stayed Iron Man. And I respect the hell out of him for it.
> 
> But I'm a fanfic writer and I like playing at being God and so in this 'verse, Tony didn't fix the world, but he did fix a few minor things. And that's that.


End file.
